In spite of all the well deserved hoopla over Johnson and the No. 48 Chevrolet team winning their sixth NASCAR Sprint Cup championship at Homestead Miami Speedway Sunday night, the big number is seven — as in the record seven championships won by Richard Petty and Dale Earnhardt.

While there are fewer and fewer doubters that Johnson will not only match, but pass the two stock car racing icons, it will take another Herculean effort on his and crew chief Chad Knaus’ part.

Among those drivers who compete with him week in and week out over NASCAR’s gruelling 10-month, 38-race schedule, however, there is an inevitability that Johnson will make it to the top of the mountain.

Denny Hamlin, who won Sunday’s EcoBoost 400 at HMS in the No. 11 Toyota and who lost an epic battle with Johnson in the 2010 Chase, said the No. 48 team is just simply the best of any era.

“Unfortunately, we’re racing during the Jimmie Johnson era,” he said. “We’re just unlucky in that sense.

“I think being out there and racing with him, I can say that I think he’s the best that there ever was. He’s racing against competition that is tougher than this sport’s ever seen.

“The guy’s just good.”

Hamlin said he knows why Johnson is as good as he is and why he has won six championships.

“I don’t know how to explain it, but they just don’t make any mistakes,” he said.

Matt Kenseth, who fought Johnson almost to a draw throughout the first eight races of the 2013 Chase, said he gave it all he had in a season he considered his best ever — even better that his own 2003 championship season — and he still came up short.

He said just when he thought maybe he had the opportunity to knock Johnson off this year, it went away.

“They just seem to be able to raise the bar,” he said of Johnson and Knaus. “If they don’t have any kind of problem, they’re capable of winning every week.

“If they don’t win, they’re going to run in the top five. Seems like you have to run in the top five every single week (to compete).”

Kenseth admitted it is frustrating knowing he was giving it his best shot and still coming up short over the final 10 races that make up the championship.

“The final 10, I didn’t get more points than Jimmie,” he said. “We still ran good the final 10. We didn’t have any huge disasters. We just didn’t run good enough to beat him.”

Earlier at Homestead, Petty himself said that Johnson will very likely break his and Earnhardt’s record of seven championships.

Richard Childress, who was the team owner of the No. 3 Chevrolet when Earnhardt set his mark, went even further saying Johnson was already more than an equal to the Intimidator and the King.

“He’ll go down in history as one of the greatest, if not the greatest,” Childress said. “He’s got many good years ahead of him. I think he’ll set a lot of records before he decides to hang it up.”

Johnson himself often defers to Knaus, his crew chief through the six championships so far, as the prime reason for his success, but that same Knaus knows it is Johnson’s immense athletic ability and talent that has brought the team to where it is today.

“He is an amazing talent, there’s no doubt about it,” Knaus said Sunday night after the championship had been won. “He can do things with a race car that most mortals can’t. Let’s just be straight with it.” And Rick Hendrick, the team owner who took a chance on Johnson when no one else would a dozen years ago, said the record speaks for itself when assessing where Johnson will stand when history comes to judge.

“I think when you look at Jimmie Johnson, I like to use the (Bill) Parcell’s quote, ‘You are what your record says you are,’” he said.

As for getting to the magic seven championships, Hendrick has no doubt whatsoever.

“This week we’ve been talking about how we could be better next year as an organization,” he said. “I just think it’s the drive that they have.”

Hendrick ended with saying that former NFL quarterback Donovan McNabb was wrong to suggest Johnson wasn’t an athlete in the classic sense.

“I heard McNabb say he wasn’t an athlete,” he said. “I’d like to see McNabb come run the Boston Marathon with him or swim the lake out here.

“Guys like that don’t know what they’re talking about. He wouldn’t have been (Associated Press) Athlete of the Year if people didn’t know what kind of unbelievable athlete he is.”

JUNIOR AIMING FOR JIMMIE

Dale Earnhardt Jr. considers his 2013 season in the No. 88 Chevrolet the best of his career since joining Hendrick Motorsports after leaving the then-family-owned Dale Earnhardt Inc. team in 2008.

He said this even though he went 0-for-36 in the NASCAR Sprint Cup win column.

Earnhardt’s third-place finish in the season finale Ford EcoBoost 400 at Homestead Miami Speedway was a microcosm of his season — close, but no cigar.

He does believe, however, his consistent finishes in the top 10 — he had 22 of them in 36 points races — bodes well for 2014.

“I was really happy to run as well as we have this season,” he said after Sunday’s race. “This has been one of the best years I’ve had, certainly the best year I’ve had working with Hendrick.”

Earnhardt not only thinks he can get back into Victory Lane next season, he believes he can challenge Hendrick teammate and six-time champion Jimmie Johnson for a Chase championship.

“I am hoping next year we continue that trend and that trajectory and get a shot at winning a championship,” he said. “I think we can do it.”

Jimmie Johnson and Chad Knaus are two of a kind

In spite of all the well deserved hoopla over Johnson and the No. 48 Chevrolet team winning their sixth NASCAR Sprint Cup championship at Homestead Miami Speedway Sunday night, the big number is seven — as in the record seven championships won by Richard Petty and Dale Earnhardt.

While there are fewer and fewer doubters that Johnson will not only match, but pass the two stock car racing icons, it will take another Herculean effort on his and crew chief Chad Knaus’ part.

Among those drivers who compete with him week in and week out over NASCAR’s gruelling 10-month, 38-race schedule, however, there is an inevitability that Johnson will make it to the top of the mountain.

Denny Hamlin, who won Sunday’s EcoBoost 400 at HMS in the No. 11 Toyota and who lost an epic battle with Johnson in the 2010 Chase, said the No. 48 team is just simply the best of any era.

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